The World Between Blinks by Amie Kaufman

Author:Amie Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

12

Jake

NEFERTITI’S COURT KNEW HOW TO PARTY!

That evening was the fanciest feast Jake had ever been to, and he’d attended his fair share of embassy “shindigs” with his mom. Lost royals and nobility and dignitaries from a long stretch of centuries gathered in a high-pillared hall. Trays of exquisite snacks were ferried about by unimpressed servants, while stories of power and foul play were shared across the long tables. Being a royal—particularly a lost one—seemed to involve lots of backstabbing.

Jake and Marisol nibbled on soft, buttery slices of Ansault pear, their eyes wide and ears eager. There was a lot to take in. Names included.

“Nice to meet you!” A gentleman with an Austrian accent and a sloping chin smiled at the cousins. “I’m Giovanni Nepomuceno Maria Annunziata Giuseppe Giovanni Batista Ferdinando Baldassare Luigi Gonzaga Pietro Alessandrino Zanobi Anton—”

“Really, Johann!” Though the boy who said this looked closer to their age, his face was chiseled. Almost a marble bust, if not for his warm brown skin and tumbling black curls. “They’ll fall asleep before you finish!”

The man with the endless name sighed, deflated. “Some people call me Archduke Johann Salvator. Even more call me Johann.”

“How can you remember such a long name?” Jake wondered.

“It’s mine,” the archduke said simply. “To keep it that way, I recite it every morning, noon, and night.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.” Jake glanced down at his hourglass. The charm felt heavier than usual, so heavy that he wondered one more time if it’d be so bad to let go of a grain. Just one. A teary goodbye to a friend, maybe?

Marco in Italy. Or Silvie in France. Or Freya in Australia.

Then again, he’d had so many. . . .

Johann followed Jake’s gaze. “You’ve got to stay on top of your sands so they don’t get dragged down. Or rather, dispatched to the Great Library of Alexandria. That’s where the Administrator archives them.”

Marisol furrowed her brow. “The Administrator? We’ve heard that name before, but who is the Administrator?”

“He’s the first Curator. Their boss.” Johann’s sloped chin went sharp. “Queen Nefertiti doesn’t like him much, and this is her court, so we should probably change the subject. Now, I heard you just visited the underwater cities. How were they?”

“Watery.” Jake was too distracted tucking his necklace back under his collar to answer properly.

The archduke was undeterred. “I love the water! It was the sea that brought me to the World in the first place! I was sailing near Cape Horn, when my ship was caught in the most incredible storm. Waves thrashed our bow and fog swirled everywhere, though I thought it was odd that the winds didn’t tear the clouds apart. When we sailed out the other side, well—later on I learned it hadn’t been fog at all, but the Unknown. Was your journey similar?”

“Less dramatic,” Marisol said. “We did meet a chicken that lived in a car, though.”

She and Jake supplied the details as the statuesque boy tossed Oz pieces of meat seasoned with silphium.

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